I’ve had may sense for 2 weeks now and it has failed to recognize a single device. What gives is this normal?
Hey @brian.toal - sorry to hear you ran into some issues early on here. I’ll check in with our Support team on Monday to see if they can take a look at what’s happening on our end.
The answer is that “your mileage will vary”. There’s an excellent resource here, that should give you some insights:
A lot depends on a few factors:
- Types of devices - some are easy to detect, some are harder to detect and some are nearly impossible to detect. More here:
- How often they cycle on and off
- Noise in your house
It take a long time…and is generally an underwhelming experience…
I am a HUGE fan of my Sense Energy Monitor… But as I have stated in previous posts, I mostly get my value from the realtime monitor and the trending usage data…
If my primary use case was device level energy consumption visibility, I don’t think I would be satisfied with this solution…
I have to admit that since picking up 13 KP115 Smartplug Outlets, I didn’t realize how much “fun” I would have seeing device level consumption… In fact, I think the Smartplug Outlets are a better solution, even if Sense detects your devices…
Sense uses machine learning to see turn on and turn off characteristics of your devices… When my portable AC unit compressor kicks on (assuming Sense has learned this behavior), it will associate only the energy used when the compressor is on with the device… It won’t associate the energy it uses in standby mode, or when the compressor is off, but the fan is still on… If you put a smartplug on it though, it will associate and track all usage consumed through that smartplug outlet…
Again… I can’t state more clearly that I am NOT unhappy with my Sense Energy monitor… I love it… But it is NOT the solution you are looking for if you are interested specifically in device level consumption visibility… It’s more about the “forest” and less about the “trees”.
Where the device detection is essential is where you can’t use a smartplug outlet. As an example, I am so happy that my central AC compressor was detected… Cuz there’s no way for me to put a smartplug outlet on it!
So far, my Sense has detected all the subcomponents of my refrigerator (the fridge light, the freezer light, the defroster, the compressor), my paper shredder, my garage door opener, my central AC and my coffee maker (sort of…it always shows my coffee maker, my microwave and my toaster oven as being the same thing)…
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